5 TMNT Brews for Historic!: Fun & Jank Episode 69

Welcome back to Fun & Jank Episode 69 (nice)! I’m Plum, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) set just dropped. Which means new brews!

The power level of this set isn’t exactly earth-shattering. If you’re looking for the next Modern Horizons to completely upend the Tier 1 meta, this isn’t it. However, as a brewer, this set is an absolute goldmine. What it lacks in raw power, it makes up for in sheer synergy and creativity. There’s tons of synergies between +1/+1 counters, sneak, and some fun new class Enchantments, which means we have a brand-new toolkit to play with.

So today, I’m going to show of some shells we talked about in the last episode. I’ll be honest though, Plum is a little busy in real life and hasn’t had a chance to test of all of these, but theorycrafting is half the fun! Hopefully they’ll spark an ideas for some of you or give you a new idea for some brews!

And just as a reminder, these are all rough drafts! I may have missed cards, or built it completely differently than you might have, so use these more as inspiration rather than guidelines!

Let’s hop in!

Deck #1: Scale Pals

If you’ve been following stream for awhile, you know my love for Hardened Scales runs deep. This deck is a beautiful marriage of old-school artifact synergies and the brand-new engine pieces: Technodrome and Arcbound Ravager.

The core of this deck revolves around the “untap” package. We’re running the classic Steel Overseer alongside Voltaic Servant. In the old days, this just meant doubling up on Overseer activations to grow the board. Technodrome is a great addition to this build as it gives both power and card draw.

Technodrome is a massive reach/trample threat that grows whenever you sacrifice an artifact to draw a card. With a Voltaic Servant on board, you can crack an artifact during your turn to draw and grow, then untap the Technodrome at your end step to do it all over again on your opponent’s turn. This version isn’t playing Hardened Bonds (just haven’t tested it yet), but with that and Technodrome out, you can add 4 cards to your hand every turn cycle.

We also finally have Arcbound Ravager in the format! This is the glue that holds everything together. Ravager lets you sacrifice your board in response to removal, moving all those precious counters onto an Inkmoth Nexus for a surprise lethal infect swing or onto a Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp to keep the pressure high. Technodrome having trample also has been quite relevant in my early testing as well.

I’m very excited to try a variety of Scales shells, especially splashing Red for things like Weapons Manufacturing or Pinnacle Emissary.

Deck #2: New Perspectives Combo

This is a deck that really screams Fun & Jank to me, and probably one you haven’t seen in a long time. Traditionally, that deck struggled with “win conditions” that felt like clunky bricks in your hand until the very last second. But with the addition of Cool but Rude, we have a win-con that actually helps us find the combo.

The goal is to resolve New Perspectives while holding seven cards (which is easy with its ETB trigger). Once that happens, all your cycling costs become $0$. You cycle through your entire deck, drawing cards and using Vizier of Tumbling Sands or Shefet Monitor to generate mana. Shadow of the Grave helps to make sure you can recycle (haha! get it?! re-cycle?!).

The update for this shell comes from Cool but Rude. At Level 2, this enchantment deals 2 damage to your opponent every time you discard a card. Since cycling counts as discarding, you simply cycle 10 cards to deal 20 damage. It also acts a tutor for New Perspectives at Level 3 which helps makes the deck more consistent.

We’ve also had some upgrades to the mana base. Now, the idea behind Labyrinth might not be right, but I thought it was cool that we can power this sol land with cyclers that we’d already be playing to combo with anyways.

• Ugin’s Labyrinth + Big Cyclers: We’re running Warped Tusker and Drownyard Lurker. These are 7+ mana spells that we can imprint onto the Labyrinth for massive early ramp, but they also have cycling to help us dig or trigger our Class damage later.
• Lotus Field: A single Lotus Field makes casting Shadow of the Grave or leveling up our Class a breeze during the combo turn. This is your main target for Vizier
• Shardless Outlander: A new addition from Foundations Jumpstart! This 6/5 trampler has landcycling for 2, which fixes our mana early and acts as a discard trigger late game.

I’m not quite sure this version of the deck has what it takes to keep up with the rest of the format, and you could most certainly drop the Labyrinth package for actual utiltiy liek Sweltering Suns and such, but only testing will help us figure that out.

Looks like a fun one to play!

Deck #3: UR Casey Jones

If you caught my stream earlier this week, you saw me put this list through its paces. While the TMNT set might not be breaking the format’s power ceiling, Casey Jones, Vigilante is a legitimate contender for the best new tool in the Izzet “Draw-Discard” shell. He’s a three-mana 4/3 that draws you three cards on entry, with a “delayed” discard trigger on your next upkeep.

The beauty of Casey Jones in this deck is how he feeds our secondary engines. We’re running Proft’s Eidetic Memory, which turns those extra draws into immediate +1/+1 counters. A typical curve looks like turn one Marauding Mako, turn two Eidetic Memory, and turn three Casey Jones. Suddenly, your Mako is a 2/2 and your Casey becomes a 7/6 threat. If your Mako survives the following turn, the discard from Casey will power it up even more.

Because Casey forces us to discard three cards at random, we’ve packed the deck with spells that don’t mind the bin:

• Detective’s Phoenix and Winternight Stories: Both can be cast or bestowed directly from the graveyard, ensuring we never truly lose card advantage.
• Flameblade Adept & Marauding Mako: These one-drops grow every time we discard, meaning Casey’s “downside” trigger on our upkeep actually buffs our board for a massive follow-up swing.

The deck has a surprising amount of reach with Chain Lightning and Quantum Riddler, and we’re using Oliphaunt to both fix our mana and act as fuel for Detective’s Phoenix. Even in a tough matchup against Domain Beans or Esper Blink, Casey’s raw draw power kept us in the game, refilling our hand with answers like Lightning Axe or more threats. I was impressed every time I got him on the board.

Deck #4: Mutagen Man Nadu

Mutagen Man, Living Ooze was a card I haven’t seen many people talk about, but its abilities actually have small synergies in a variety of shells that makes me giddy about it.

Mutagen Man is an XGG 2/3 with trample that creates X Mutagen tokens on entry. These tokens normally cost 1 to crack for a +1/+1 counter, but Mutagen Man’s static ability makes artifact token activations cost 1 less.

With Nadu on the field, every Mutagen token you sacrifice for free triggers a Nadu draw/ramp effect. Giving you both power and card advantage at the same time. We’re also running Plagon, Lord of the Beach as a way to trigger Nadu that happens to also draw us a crap-ton of cards.

Stoneforge Mystic is also great here. She fetches Lightning Greaves (another free target for Nadu), Kaldra Compleat for the beatdown, or Assimilation Aegis for removal. It’s a good piece of utility to have in a shell like this.

As a side note, Mutagen Man has a ton of other shells I’m excited to test him in. He seems incredible with cards like Biotech Specialist and Dowsing Dagger, so I’m sure we’ll play a Gruul build on stream at some point!

Deck #5: Gruul Rampage

This last deck is another attempt at a deck we played in the past. The main goal is to paly a bunch of artifacts/enchantments, then cast Rampage of the Clans to turn them all into an army of 3/3 tokens. But let’s talk about why we’re revisiting it first.

The card I want to test is Party Dude, a one-mana Green Class that immediately fixes the board by giving everyone a Food token. I’m relly only interested in the first two levels here. It gives us two things to blow up with Rampage, but Level 2 means that whatever we destroy from our opponent (like the food token we gave them) draws us into more gas.

We spend the early game flooding the board with Food, Treasures, and Robots via Wish Good Luck, A Golden Opportunity, and Legion Extruder. Once the board is cluttered, we cast Rampage at the end of our opponent’s turn. All those non-creature artifacts turn into 3/3 Centaurs.

I’ve also thrown in Academy Manufactor to help flood the board for a massive Rampage. One casting of Wish Good Luck suddenly nets you a Food, a Treasure, and a Clue (plus the Vehicle token). This provides all the fuel you need for Galvanic Blast to stay live or for Melded Moxite to keep your hand moving.

I think this one is just fun. It’s also an excuse for me to finally play A Golden Opportunity in Historic.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve been throwing around so many sweet ideas over the last few days! I am beyond eager to get into the queues and start testing. These five brews are just the tip of the iceberg. I love brewin’!

Brewing is collaborative though! You’ll have to come join us on stream to help me brew in real-time. We’re going to be iterating on these lists over the next few weeks and I’m always up for input and suggestions!

That’s it for me!

Thanks for reading!

As always, feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below. And make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!

If you want to help me brew, come hang out with me on stream where we test, refine, and have a ton of fun together.

Happy Brewin’!